People have all different kinds of ideas and expectations about the afterlife.
Some people think they'll enter the great abyss. Some look forward to having the wonders of the universe opened up to them.
Me, I think I'll meet God and at last get to find out the answers to all my burning questions.
And one of the first that I'll ask - like, at least top 10 - is, "Where are all the lost things?"
It drives me absolutely nuts to know that those precious, vanished items still exist in the world somewhere, but I'll never find them.
I picture the underside of my carpet or the tiny niches of my car upholstery filled with jewellery that slipped off my body while I went about my life, unknowing and innocent of the loss.
I imagine my son's underwater camera, last seen in the family car five years ago, lurking in a pile of picnic rugs or beach bags somewhere.
I see the green plastic sharpening case of my favourite kitchen knife leave on its journey out of my life and desperately want to know - was it accidentally thrown in the recycling bin? And by whom?
I must have answers!
Whenever I see an archeological dig on the television with it's scattering of coins and pots shards (or even just when I'm gardening and a Matchbox car turns up under the daffodil bulbs) I think, "Someone would have been looking for that."
Imagine an ancient Roman matron racking her brains as to where she put her brass jewellery box, then leaning down from heaven to see the archeologists discovering it hidden between two bricks at the back of what was her villa.
"How'd it get there?" she'd say in surprise.
Wouldn't it be great to get a divine directory, mapping out the hidey-holes of all the missing bits and pieces?
I'm not much good at keeping track of all the stuff that whirls around me in this life. It would be a comfort to at least know that one day, I'll find out where everything is.
